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DeRozan smashes Raptors scoring record in OT win over Bucks

It was pointed out to DeMar DeRozan that the Raptors are about to face a difficult stretch of the NBA schedule with some excellent teams ahead, including a playoff rematch with the Milwaukee Bucks to open the calendar year.

“I love it,” he said. “You want to be among the best, and the only way you can do that is to beat the best teams in the league.”

Now, the Bucks aren’t considered among the best teams in the league, but they have been a handful for the Raptors in the past and DeRozan figured it was time to make a statement.

He did.

DeRozan scored a career-high and franchise-record 52 points — just the third Raptor to ever get to the 50-point level in a regular-season game — as Toronto beat the Milwaukee Bucks 131-127 in overtime in a truly delightful contest at the Air Canada Centre.

Joining Vince Carter and Terrence Ross in Toronto’s 50-point club — both scored 51: Carter in 2000 and Ross in 2014 — DeRozan joked about the calls he was going to make.

“I for sure wanted to beat T-Ross,” DeRozan said of his one-time Raptors teammate. “I’m going to have to reach out to him some way. I wasn’t thinking about it, but it’s cool after the fact, to play with a guy that I’ve seen get the record and pass a guy that I looked up to playing when I was a kid.”

But DeRozan said he wasn’t aware of his scoring total. He was too immersed in the game.

“Honestly, I just kept looking at the score trying to figure out how many possessions we had left, what we had to do, when we needed a stop, when we needed a bucket, when we needed something,” he said. “That’s all I was caring about.”

DeRozan also led the Raptors with eight assists, while Kyle Lowry had 26 points and Fred VanVleet made a huge overtime three-pointer as part of an 11-point game. VanVleet also made a clutch free throw with nine seconds left in overtime — after missing the first of two attempts — to give Toronto some breathing room.

“Everybody criticized him for iso basketball, but again, get the ball in your best player’s hands,” Casey said.

In a rematch of last spring’s first-round playoff series, the Bucks hunted the Raptors down in the final five minutes of regulation time, taking a four-point lead with just over two minutes remaining.

A DeRozan three-point play — after an emphatic Serge Ibaka block of a Giannis Antetokounmpo attempted dunk — cut the lead to one.

Antetokounmpo made a shot that was answered by a Lowry three-pointer for a tie with 56.9 seconds left.

A Bucks turnover and a botched Toronto possession ending with a shot-clock violation gave Milwaukee one shot with 3.2 seconds left.

DeRozan had perhaps his best defensive possession of the game on the final play, harassing Milwaukee’s Malcolm Brogdon until the buzzer went.

The Raptors did as well as any team could in harnessing Antetokounmpo, who came into the game second in the league in scoring, averaging 29.1 points per game. The six-foot-11 all-star didn’t dominate or even get to the rim too often, finishing with 24 points and eight rebounds.

The Raptors threw a variety of defensive looks at him, using Ibaka and OG Anunoby with a second defender often involved.

DeRozan had little time for the typical aggressive trapping the Bucks did when he was running the offence, going off for 21 of his points in the first quarter. He made three three-pointers in the 12 minutes and was one point off the franchise record for points in a quarter, set two seasons ago by Lowry.

“He was playing with a lot of juice, oomph,” Casey said. “You could see the bounce in his step in the first quarter, the force he was playing with coming off pick-and-rolls, bouncing up and he maintained that throughout the whole game, which was huge for him.”

DeRozan added another three-pointer with 2.4 seconds left in the second quarter to finish the half with 26, as Toronto led 60-55 at the break.

“You really can’t tell because you don’t pay attention to it,” he said. “You look up, you going to halftime, you may glance at it and say ‘Damn, I got X amount of points.’ You just feed off of that and understand it’s nothing but aggressiveness and going out there and wanting to win.”

In the 10-game stretch that began Monday, Toronto will face elite teams — Golden State, Cleveland and San Antonio — along with surprising Detroit, red-hot Chicago with a road game against the Bucks thrown in. There are also two games against the young Minnesota Timberwolves to deal with before January ends.

“We came out of the gate like that to start of the season. We had one of the hardest schedules and I was happy about it,” DeRozan said. “It gave us a true test, and as a competitor you want that. You want to play against the best to see where you stand.”

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